With Visible-Archive's integrated quick search feature, users can browse through all emails in all user archives they have access to. Quick search is especially suitable for simple queries. Alternatively, an Extended Search can be used.
Using Quick Search
Quick search is located in the upper left area of the application window. Simply enter one or more keywords into the search field and click on Search or press Enter. Search results are displayed in the column right of the folder list. If a keyword appears in the header or the subject line, it is highlighted.
Searching for Word Fragments
To view all emails containing a particular word fragment, use the wildcard character ( * ). For example:
auto*would locate "auto", "automatic", "automobile" and others.
Searching for Phrases
To search for words appearing consecutively and in a certain order, use quotation marks ( "" ). For example:
"Microsoft Windows"would only locate Microsoft Windows, not Microsoft Works or Windows 95.
Searching for Words with unknown letters
To view all emails containing a word where you do not know how to spell it correctly, you can use the question mark (?). For example
"ho?se"would locate house and horse.
Narrowing by Fields
A search for keywords or phrases can be limited to particular fields. For example:
subject:News only in Subject
from:[email protected] only in From
to:[email protected] only in To
cc:[email protected] only in Cc
bcc:[email protected] only in BccExcluding Words
To narrow a search, it may be desired to specify words that must NOT be present in the emails. To exclude keywords from the search results, simply place a minus ( - ) sign in front of them. For example:
ZDNet -download-hintwould locate all emails from ZDNet, but not download-hint.
Combining Search Options
The search options described above can also be combined. For example:
ZDNET -"Daily Update"would locate all emails from ZDNet which do not contain the consecutive words Daily Update.
About Special Characters
Words inside indexed emails or attachments, which are a combination of alphanumeric and non-alphanumeric characters (white space, line break, delimiter or other control characters), may be returned in search results when searching for the alphanumerical part only.
For instance, the word test_1234 is returned when searching for test, 1234 and test_1234.
Other commonly occurring characters are:
- Comma (,)
- Colon (;)
- Hyphen (-)
- Underscore (_)
- AT-Sign (@)
- Slash Backslash (/,\)
- Null character (NUL)